Paul Posted February 17, 2005 Report Share Posted February 17, 2005 I have 2 x 120Gb drives that may be becoming spare. Can you ever wipe a disk so that any data is completely unrecoverable? ie if you sold them on? or is it best to just smash them to pieces? Alternativly: has anyone seen external enclosures that support SATA drives and convert to say USB2.0? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Frodo Posted February 17, 2005 Report Share Posted February 17, 2005 I think GCHQ recommend writing over the disks at least 5 times, first all 1's then all 0's then random data. The thoery being that data always leaves a magnetic impression and this is what you need to get rid of. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BeakerBuddy Posted February 17, 2005 Report Share Posted February 17, 2005 Trying to hide something?? BBC News Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paul Posted February 17, 2005 Author Report Share Posted February 17, 2005 Im seriously thinking of splitting up my pc, and going completely Laptop based. in which case id have 2 x 120Gb drives, that A. could be sold off B. slipped into a external enclosure and used as extra storage (if a sata -> USB2.0 one exists) C. Smashed to bits, as to buy above probably more expensive than buying a network based storage solution IF i ever needed one. only reason id like to wipe it, is personal banking details, scanned docs, like registrations docs V5, bank statements, bills, etc etc. HD storage i guess is cheaper than ever, so i guess selling on isnt worth the hassel and uncertanty of security. So scrap option A. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BeakerBuddy Posted February 17, 2005 Report Share Posted February 17, 2005 Would be good for a DIY Sky+ system...although I have no idea how to do it? I'm sure there's either someone here or on the wider web who'd already have written a guide on how to. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Colin M Posted February 17, 2005 Report Share Posted February 17, 2005 Paul, I've got just the thing, it fits on one floppy so I'll MSN it to you later and as soon as I can find the disc. It does a secure type format and re-write with as many options up some impressive sounding level. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paul Posted February 17, 2005 Author Report Share Posted February 17, 2005 Cheers Colin. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CarMad Posted February 17, 2005 Report Share Posted February 17, 2005 There are lots of utilites that can do this. www.download.com should have lots if you have a look. I have worked for a company that when selling things on they destroy the hard disk and do the job properly. This is after doing a full delete and clear. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rustynuts Posted February 17, 2005 Report Share Posted February 17, 2005 Eraser zipfile. Here's a link to a utility called Eraser, which does what you want. Bugger, limit exceeded. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
caveman Posted February 17, 2005 Report Share Posted February 17, 2005 its not that easy where downloads.com can save u but if ur not doing any spy work u shouldnt be worried just do what frodo recommeded!!GL Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cruiser647 Posted February 17, 2005 Report Share Posted February 17, 2005 This was in the news this morning. Many places that take old PC's from firms etc etc, have not been wiping the hard drives properly. Loads of data has been found on them. (personal/industrial/commercial info). The safest thing to do, is to smash them up. Or re-use as a basic standalone storage jobbie. A 120Gb IDE disc is £60 max brand new, so you would not get much for them 2nd hand. A 120Gb SATA disc is about £75 or so...... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Foggy Posted February 17, 2005 Report Share Posted February 17, 2005 PDWipe will do a pretty good job, certainly your average joe wouldn't have a hope in hell. http://www.digitalintelligence.com/software/disoftware/pdwipe/ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
s4dreamer Posted February 18, 2005 Report Share Posted February 18, 2005 [ QUOTE ] I have 2 x 120Gb drives that may be becoming spare. Can you ever wipe a disk so that any data is completely unrecoverable? [/ QUOTE ] Nope. [ QUOTE ] ie if you sold them on? or is it best to just smash them to pieces? [/ QUOTE ] It depends how paranoid you are about the data that's on them. A few complete writes of random data across the entire disk will render it unreadable to all but those in the data recovery industry (read: GCHQ). Smashing it up is still no absolute guarantee as the bits of disk could be analysed independently. So, unless you've got something that the government might be interested in, I'd just recommend one of those wiper products, but make sure it does something similar to what Frodo suggests. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
craigyb Posted February 18, 2005 Report Share Posted February 18, 2005 [ QUOTE ] Would be good for a DIY Sky+ system...although I have no idea how to do it? I'm sure there's either someone here or on the wider web who'd already have written a guide on how to. [/ QUOTE ] They are SATA, they wont work in a sky box Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mac Posted February 18, 2005 Report Share Posted February 18, 2005 Multiple re-writes are your best option if you want to get rid. Tell you what - you could do what some of our dumb f*ck PC support people do. Enable EFS for the whole drive then don't export the private key Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Frodo Posted February 18, 2005 Report Share Posted February 18, 2005 Yea done that when I was playing with my own machine ages ago. Setup up EFS then forget about it for ages and then when I went back couldn't remember the password. Me stupid Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mac Posted February 18, 2005 Report Share Posted February 18, 2005 Think youself lukcy - one of our tech support people decided to fix our CEO's PC while he was on holiday by rebuilding it. I'm sure you can guess the rest of the story. Luckily I had manually copied the data off first.....having very little faith in the PC support people and all. I do feel sorry for desktop people though. I mean in my world it's ok to spend two weeks planning a single unit upgrade - I doubt they'd get the opportunity. I mean 'can you do an upgrade on this PC' - 'Give me two weeks to plan' 'No.'. I guess the exposure risk is less but the actual risk to something going wrong isn't. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Frodo Posted February 18, 2005 Report Share Posted February 18, 2005 Hmm not sure I agree having done PC support for a few years around 1999 for an investment bank. My experience is that you get a lot of fairly knowledgeable people who are just lazy, ignorant or unskilled. A rebuild is a common occurance so just right a robocopy script to either copy everything or just common files doc, ppt, xls, favourites etc, etc. Let it run whilst you are doing something else, then rebuild it. Surprising in your scenario usually the more knowledgeable, experienced and customer focused support guys look after VIP's Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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